put your fear of SIDS to rest. In honor of SIDS Awareness month, let’s take some time to educate ourselves and fight to reduce the rates of SIDS in the black community.
What Is SIDS?
In a nutshell, SIDs is the unexplained, sudden death during sleep of an infant that is less than a year old. Often times the baby is seemingly health and normal leading up to the death which makes the tragedy that much more traumatic and unexpected. There are several medical and environmental factors that contribute to SIDS.
According to Mayo Clinic, premature or low birth weight babies face a higher risk along with infants with brain defects and those who have recently suffered from a cold or respiratory infection. All of these things can affect how the baby regulates their breathing. Environmental factors that contribute to SIDS include sleep position, clothing, and crib safety, which we’ll detail later.
The rates of SIDS deaths in the USA has dropped dramatically in the past twenty years due to the ‘back to sleep’ campaign, which advocated for parents to put their babies on their back to sleep. Even with the strides we have made as a country to combat SIDS, Black infants are still much more likely to